


A Remembrance Forgotten

by oONightmareOo



Series: Aileni [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Artie has lost memories, M/M, Rebirth and Remembering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 21:10:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10369494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oONightmareOo/pseuds/oONightmareOo
Summary: Arthur lived in a peaceful room.  There was a visitor, apparently, as the woman in white said.  Maybe he was a rich man?  She seemed a lot like a maid.  The visitor was a boy.  He didn't know this boy but the boy said he knew Arthur. (An excuse for fluff for Hetalia)





	

                Iggy didn’t know how to react when the blond teenager walked into his room.  He didn’t look any older than 14 years of age yet he was carrying a bouquet of a mix of white, pastel pink, and lavender roses with a single red rosebud in the center.  The boy was wearing a worn pair of jeans and a well-loved black graphic t-shirt that had faded greatly over time, making it difficult to tell exactly what it might have been once upon a time – taking a look at the multitude of earrings decorating the boy’s ears, he supposed it might be safe to bet that the t-shirt was once a band shirt.  His ocean blue eyes lit up after he had shut the door, looking over to see Iggy sitting up in the center of the room.  “Artie!  You’re awake!”  _Artie?_

                “Yes, I suppose I am.”  He watched as the boy bounced around the room, setting the bouquet up gently within a glass vase and putting water within it – all the while, chattering about how his day went.  Soon, Iggy found himself smiling along with the boy, laughing when a point of the story was funny, and nodding along.  He didn’t have to answer any of the boy’s questions as they were all rhetorical, he didn’t have any reason to awkwardly fill any silence, and he didn’t have to ask questions himself.  Jumping over to the bed that Iggy sat in, the boy finished his story.  Iggy couldn’t help his laughter at the end when the boy explained that the prank was a total success and ‘Francypants’ was in need of a new pair of pants that didn’t have cactus spikes in them.

                “So now, here I am, wondering if what the Doctor told me was correct.”  The boy grinned cheerfully as he prepared to ask a question.  “Do you know who I am, Artie?”  The youth stared expectantly as Iggy mulled over the question.

                “… No, I wish I did but I’m afraid my head’s a bit fuzzy.”  The smile on the boy’s face faltered slightly before gaining a determined tilt to it.  “What is your name, if I may ask?  Also, why do you keep calling me ‘Artie’?  I was informed by the Doctor that my name is Ignatius Kretin.  A Spanish man named Toni told me that I went by Iggy.”

                “So that’s your name!  You never told me what it was whenever I asked, saying that you preferred me to call you by a different name.”  The boy grinned happily at the revelation of Iggy’s name.  “Well, anyways, just so you know I’m not going to tell you my name.  You helped me to remember the past but now I’m gonna help you.  You better be prepared Arthur Kirkland.”  With that, the kid stuck out his tongue mischievously before running out the door.

                “Arthur… Kirkland?”  The name sounded familiar but that was strange.  The doctor had no reason at all to lie to him over his name.  Neither did the Spaniard from before.  Was there a reason he remembered that name to some extent?

…

                “Hey Artie!  How are you today?”  A new face of the day.  Who was this boy?  Earlier that day, he had been informed by a doctor that he had been in this room for a full week now – he didn’t remember any of it though.  He was probably asleep throughout the whole time.  He didn’t want to dwell on that too much though.

                The boy looked as if he had just entered his junior year of high school, having a height that a basketball player would enjoy and a build that an American football player would envy.  He was wearing a hole-y gray shirt with an American flag printed on it and jeans that looked to have been worn too much judging by the giant holes in the knees.  His blond hair was shaggy and his glasses looked self-repaired.  He had a bit of dirt smudging his face.  A bouquet of white carnations with a few bachelor buttons and black-eyed Susans was held in his clumsy grasp.

                “I’m doing fine, and you?”  Politely answering the teen seemed the best route to Ignatius, who had been gazing into the hospital courtyard.  There was a garden there with all sorts of flowers set within – from the smallest little flowers to even apple blossom trees.  It was amazing to look at.  Ignatius had been able to name every flower and bloom he could spot from the window and that was what truly amazed him.

                “I’m as good as you are.”  Grinning widely, the boy took a seat across from Ignatius after having set the bouquet up in a vase where the previous flowers had wilted and died.  “So, remember anything today?”

                “Am I supposed to remember something?”  Ignatius only knew what the doctor had told him this morning and what he had figured out on his own while staying within his room – and he found out that he rather liked flowers and English tea.

                “Well, you were looking out the window at the garden so I was wondering if…”  The grin faltered a little as the boy went on, resignation showing through his sad blue eyes.  Ignatius sighed after a moment, moving his gaze back over to the garden.

                “I was naming each of the flowers, wondering a little if I was obsessed with flowers before I gained amnesia.”  Ignatius stared intently down at the little garden.  The other blond chuckled a little.

                “Well, I guess you could say that.  You have a little flower shop downtown that was your heart and soul.  It’s where I met you when I was in elementary school.  My mom had taken me to get a bouquet of flowers for my father’s grave and you were the only one open on a Sunday.  You even came along with us when you heard the story of how my dad died – said you knew someone who had died the same way.”  Ignatius didn’t remember any of this.  He wasn’t surprised that he didn’t know what the boy was talking about.  But it did sound familiar.

                “I see.”  He took a sip of tea, causing the other boy to snicker.  “What now?”

                “Hey, can I tell you a story?”  The boy seemed to already know the answer but asked the question anyways.

                “I don’t like stories.”  Ignatius dismissed it, looking back at the garden.  “I would like to go see the garden though.”  The boy stood up, offering his arm for Ignatius to hook his hand onto.

                “Shall we go then?”  Ignoring the proffered arm, Ignatius set his tea back down and stood on his own, walking alongside the other blond.  “Oh yeah, you probably don’t remember my name, do you?”  A hopeful gaze was trained on Ignatius’ face.

                “No, what is it?”  It felt like a time of déjà vu, honestly.

                “I’m not gonna tell you, Artie.”  The blond boy grinned as he crossed his arms behind his head.  “You helped me remember so I’m going to help you remember.”

                “Why do you keep calling me ‘Artie’?”  Ignatius had noticed before that boy had named him as Artie – obviously, this was entirely wrong.  The doctor had told him before that his name was Ignatius Kretin but this boy was his only visitor today.

                “’Cause that’s your name silly.”  Well, he supposed that made sense.  In a weird childish way.

                “I… I see.”  The name sounded familiar enough so he would let it slide.

                “Anyways, are you sure you don’t want that story?”  Ignatius looked over to see the boy looking at him intensely.

                “No, I do not want to hear a story right now.”  What was with this kid’s insistence on a story?

…

                “Do you want to hear a story Artie?”  This man that sat across from him moved his chosen chess piece while Artie kept looking back and forth between the rulebook and the board in growing frustration.  It seemed like a nice distraction.

                “Yes, that would be nice.”  The absolute shock on the man’s face was amazing.  The man appeared to be around 19 or 20 years of age, the perfect age for college.  His blond hair was in a mess but it appeared to be on purpose.  The shirt he wore appeared to be of a band titled My Chemical Romance and was relatively new and a set of glasses hung from the collar of the shirt.  He pants were a pair of dirt covered jeans, as if he had spent the majority of the day previous to coming to this hospital in a garden.  He hadn’t seen anyone today but this man so he was rather curious on whether it really was a hospital, even if the smell and look of the place made his mind title it a hospital.

                “Wh-really?!”  The man looked like a five-year-old in a candy store with how excited he had gotten at Artie’s answer.  “Really really?!”

                Artie chuckled a bit, setting the rulebook down.  “Of course, it would be better than playing a game I don’t know with a nameless man.”

                Nearly bouncing in his seat with how excited he was, the man cleared his throat before starting.  It was obvious that he had heard the story many times and said it himself many times – apparently never to Artie though.  “There once was a prince of a kingdom who could see what others could not.”  As the story continued, Artie found himself drawn into the story of the prince and the angel – all the way from the moment the prince had seen the angel through even the battle to protect the prince and until the time that they finally passed away at the end of the story.  “They were together until the end.  But it was never an end as they continued to be reborn – as an assassin and a thief, as a nun and a bandit, as even famous musicians, novelists, and models.  Whether they were born apart or born together, one older by years or they were both the same age, they always found each other.  They always got together.  They always fell in love with each other.”  By this time, Artie was attempting to figure out why he was crying.  The tears just kept falling and falling, becoming more and more as the man across from him continued speaking.  The other blond reached over and wiped away a cheek full of tears before starting again.  “Years ago, I heard another story of these two.  All the previous stories had come from one person, but this new one came from a different person.  A doctor continued the story when I had entered into junior high school.  He told me this new story was one that would unravel as time went on, if I stayed determined and didn’t give up.”  The man paused.

                “A-and how does this story go?”  Artie spoke up for the first time in hours, causing the nameless man to smile.

                “Well, it all starts with a florist and a boy who went to buy flowers with his mother.  The florist was a kind and compassionate man – when the boy’s mother bought a bouquet of flowers, the florist listened to her story then even made a second bouquet and went along with them to visit the boy’s father’s grave.  The boy didn’t know why so he had asked the florist.  ‘Why did you come even though you don’t know my daddy?’  So the florist looked at the little boy and said ‘because flowers have magical powers to make people feel better’.”  Artie didn’t dare interrupt the story.  Even though it had become night time, even though a portion of his mind was telling him to stop the story, even though he felt exhausted – there was a portion of him that told him that he _needed_ to hear how this story went.

                “As the years went by, the boy would go back to that same florist every Saturday at noon.  Even though the boy was poor, the man never judged him for it.  Instead, the florist taught him.  Taught him about flora and fauna, gave names to even the tiniest flowers, told him fantastical stories, helped him to grow in ways that no one else had.  Even helped him figure out a way to get out of bullying situations.  The boy’s favorite way had always been to ask a difficult question and to slip away when the bullies were confused, just as the florist had taught him to do.  Then, one day, the florist’s shop had been closed.  That had never happened before – even on holidays, the shop was open and welcoming.  Even the lights were off even though the florist had always preferred that the lights be on during the day and only shut off after dark so that the plants were given the necessary amount of sunlight throughout the day.”  Playing with the Bishop piece, the man went silent for a moment before starting again.  “The boy tried every way he could to get ahold of the man – even spent money at a payphone to call the number he had been given in case of emergencies.  When someone finally answered the phone, it wasn’t his beloved florist.  Instead, it was a hospital.  The doctor over the phone understood how the boy was anxious to know what had happened to the florist so she told him to come to the hospital that he was at and she would explain it to him.”

                “And… what had happened to him?  To the florist?”  Artie licked his chapped lips nervously, a nagging feeling that he already knew this story pulling at the back of his mind.

                The man’s deep blue eyes met his own green eyes.  “He had been diagnosed with two different types of amnesia.  At first, they had decided that he had transient global amnesia – amnesia that mainly affects the ability to make new memories and causes one to forget old memories for up to a few hours before the event occurred.  They soon found out they were wrong.  He had forgotten all of his life before the event and couldn’t remember more than a day’s worth of memories.  A tragic case of a man with both anterograde and retrograde amnesia.  He couldn’t even remember his own name until someone told him it.  The doctor told the little boy, who didn’t understand how someone could forget thirty years of their life and never remember a previous day, that it was a lot like someone playing a video game.  Retrograde amnesia is like someone restarting their game after the trauma has happened – all of the past experiences disappear.  Your levels, your experience, all of the loot that you gained is all gone.  There isn’t a single thing you can do but gain some experience, level up, and hope that this time you’ll beat the big boss.  Anterograde is like resetting to your save point – as if your game kept glitching so you end up back at a previous point in the game.  You lose the experience and levels you’ve gained since then but you don’t go all the way back to the beginning.”  A sad smile.  "Having both is like never being able to save or ever having a checkpoint, ending up at the very beginning of the game every time you died or the game glitched."

                Artie could see where this was going but he wasn’t certain how this was relevant to him.  “Anyhow,” the man continued after a short drink break.  “The doctor told the little boy that it was a temporary deal but it was better to get the florist to remember before too much time passed.  Seeing how much the boy cared about the florist, the doctor encouraged the little boy to see the man.  At first, it was hard for the boy.  He wasn’t able to really get that the man had forgotten him.  Every single day, the boy would visit the florist after school just to get the same reaction from the man.  ‘Hello.  How are you today?’  ‘I’m fine, do you remember anything yet?’  ‘No, I’m afraid not.  Anyways, what’s your name?’  After the first week or so of this, the boy suddenly had an idea.  After the man had told him so many wonderful stories, maybe he could tell the man some stories instead.  So the next day, the boy asked during a tea break if the florist wanted to hear a story.  ‘I’m afraid I’m not too fond of stories.  Sorry, maybe next time.’  This was the response the boy got every single day without fail.  Then he kept adding things to their conversation.  Whenever the man asked for his name, he instead told the florist that his name was a secret.  Whenever he said something about a memory, the boy would tell him ‘you helped me to remember so I’ll help you remember.’  He would tell the man about his day.  He would slip in hints about the people they both knew through the flower shop.”

                “How long has it been since the florist lost his memory?”  Artie was sure that he would regret asking that question but he wanted to know.  He _needed_ to know.  All of the events in both of the stories he had been told sounded extremely familiar, as if he had lived one side of the story.

                “It has been almost thirteen years since the car accident.”  _Car accident?_   A flash of light and a screech of tires came to mind.  Getting extremely dizzy suddenly, Artie had to lean forward, placing a hand at the edge of the table.  His head hurt as he tried to sort the images out, noticing that lights and sounds were easier to focus on over images themselves.  Listening to the radio as they announced that a large storm was coming their way, turning it up so that he could hear it better.  A screech of tires and a loud crash with blinding yellow light everywhere.  A large pain focused on his head.  Someone saying his name.  No, that wasn’t in his memories.  “Artie!  Are you okay?”

                “Y-yes, I think so.”  The blond man was in front of him, panicky and worried blue eyes staring into his own green eyes as he prattled on and on over how scary it was to see someone suddenly fall forward and hit the table loudly with their hand.  “Alfred!”  A shocked silence fell over the blond American.  “Seriously, I’m fine, calm down.”

                “You said my name.”

                “I- what?”  Artie blinked a few times, confused himself as the man suddenly gained an extremely joyous expression.

                “You said my name!  Artie, you remembered!”  The man was ecstatic, pumping his fist into the air victoriously.  Calming down some, the blond stared back at Artie dreamily.  “You said my name…”

                “Yes, yes, we established this already.”  Smiling fondly at the man he only barely remembered as a little boy who always had eyes bright with curiosity and wonder.  He sincerely hoped that he remembered more about this man – as time went on.  “And it’s Arthur, you git.”  Alfred chuckled ecstatically.

                “But you’re my Artie, silly.”  Arthur shook his head in amusement.

                “Whatever Alfred.”


End file.
